What I Wish I Knew About Senior Pastors…..Before I Started Youth Ministry

When I began, over 20 years ago, in my current ministry, my senior pastor said, “We don’t care about numbers. All we want is a quality program.” But as I went about building a numbers-ignoring “quality program,” it wasn’t long before my boss started hearing complaints:

• “The kids just aren’t coming.”
• “Our youth are voting with their feet.”

An not surprisingly, it wasn’t long before I started being (informally) evaluated based on, you guessed it, numbers. My boss hadn’t intentionally deceived me; he just didn’t know how to say, “I’m not concerned about numbers, unless they are too low!”

So with pre-emptive apologies to senior pastors who may not fit my stereotypes, I offer youth workers a few of the most common expectations we have heard from senior pastors around the country:

1. “I Want a Holiday Inn Youth Pastor.” Maybe you remember the old Holiday Inn motto: “No Surprises.” I have yet to meet a senior pastor who likes surprises, whether it’s that overly-explicit-annual-sex-class surprise or the youth-pastor-taking-a-day-off-without-clearing-it kind of surprise. We lose trust from our senior pastors in direct proportion to the number of surprises they experience from us.
2. “Please Don’t Leave Youth Ministry Droppings on My Desk.” Most senior ministers imagine that hiring a youth worker will reduce, rather than increase, their work load. If you, or your ministry, create more problems for your boss to solve, don’t be surprised if you begin to be treated as if the youth ministry (and your boss’s sanity) might be better off without you.
3. “Assume I Will Only Do What I’m Asked.” Youth pastors routinely express disappointment over how little their senior pastors “support” the youth ministry (“He has never once come to youth group!”). But our experience has been that most senior pastors are actually quite willing to support the youth ministry actively if they are asked far enough in advance (e.g., “Could you be involved in three programs this year?”).
4. “Don’t Expect Me to Be Excited About an Invisible Youth Ministry.” If we don’t take responsibility to weave intentional connections between our senior pastor and the youth of the church (through youth in worship, the senior pastor a youth events, or the church’s intergenerational programs), we cannot expect our boss to be an enthusiastic fan of the youth ministry.
5. “Market the Youth Ministry…to Me.” If you are not updating your boss on the goings-on of the youth ministry, don’t be surprised if your boss is not “up” on your work. All bosses are a little different. Some love email; others voice mail; some love scheduled updates; others prefer on-the-fly conversations; some want numbers; others want stories. Your mission is to discover your senior pastor’s style and match it to your regular updates.

Since your boss is, well, your boss, it be a good idea to run these expectations by him or her to find out which, if any of these expectations are true for your ministry? Who knows? You both might learn a little something.



Mark DeVries is the founder of Youth Ministry Architects and is now in his 21st year (after serving under 8 different bosses) as an Associate Pastor for Youth and Their Families at his church in Nashville, Tennessee.